ayne looked up from a tradesman's book. "Yes," she sighed
wearily. "One of Sir Joseph's cars is coming to fetch us at half-past
two. The train reaches King's Cross at three. Will you come?"

"Of course,--rather!" Cleopatra exclaimed, taking down another book and
examining it cursorily.

There was silence again, and Cleopatra could be heard running quickly
through the pages of the volume she held.

"What is Baby going to do?" she asked after a while.

"Don't ask me!" exclaimed the mother.

"Haven't you any plans?" the daughter enquired with studied
indifference, her eyes wandering vacantly over the letter-press before
them.

"Plans--what plans?" ejaculated the old lady. "I suppose the poor child
will have to put up with us now. You don't suppose we can send her
gadding about the Continent again?"

"I didn't dream of any such thing!" Cleopatra protested a little
guiltily.

"No, I promised her that she should come home for good after the School
of Domesticity, and she expects it. You saw what she said in her last
letter."

"Naturally," Cleopatra added, closing her book and replacing it
hurriedly on the shelves.

"We'll have to put up with it--that's all, my dear. I hope she won't be
too trying. But you must really help me a little by taking her off my
hands, particularly on my Bridge and 'Inner Light' days."

Cleopatra cast a glance full of meaning at her mother, and quietly left
the room. She had heard all she wanted to hear.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the subject of this conversation, ensconced comfortably in
the corner of a first-class carriage, was speeding rapidly towards
London.

Looking remarkably at her ease in a smart tailor-made frock of navy
serge, silk stockings, suede shoes, and a perfect summer hat trimmed
with bright cherries as red as her lips, she sat amid a farraginous
medley of newspapers, small parcels, and shiny leather traps, and
presented an attractive picture of a flourishing schoolgirl of
seventeen,--careless, mischievous, and keenly, though discreetly,
interested in everything about her;--but, perhaps a little too healthy,
and certainly too beautiful, to be quite typical either of the class or
of the kind of school from which she hailed.

Her large dark eyes, veiled by unusually long lashes, looked sharply at
you and then quickly turned away, with that air of mystery and secrecy,
and love of secrets at all costs--even mock secrets--peculiar to the
yo